Author Shane Tivenan: ‘People who veer away from the norm have always had a magnetic effect on me'

Irish Times

03-05-2025

Tell us about your debut collection, To Avenge a Dead Glacier?
It's a gathering of stories and characters tied together by symptoms of outsiderhood (sense of detachment, longing, confusion, unshared panic about the world). I've avoided cliched scenarios as much as possible, trying to unearth outsiders who've gotten little to no airplay so far – sean-nós singers, graffiti artists, the gifted, the environmentally concerned, the spiritual, the nonhuman.
It's a curious title. Why did you choose that over other stories from the collection?
It's been the book's title all along, and that of the longest story, which was originally about a man who delivered vengeance on those who didn't respect nature. That story eventually got rewritten; I felt I was covering no new territory. The good news is that vengeance for the dead glacier does get delivered in the book, albeit by the most unlikely set of characters.
There are 11 stories in the collection. Do you have a favourite?
Dino Matcha – I had 10,000 words of facts and sayings from the two main characters, information which I was going to use as scaffolding, but it ended up becoming the actual story. Being impossible to sequence with a laptop and a clicker, I printed out everything and my wife and I cut up each sentence and lay them all out across two large workbenches in our flat in Madrid. I then spent a week scavenging for the vital bits, later parsing through what was left for some sort of hidden order. The story is very much handmade.
Your story Flower Wild – about the Irish woman who shot Mussolini – won the Francis McManus prize in 2020 but does not feature in the collection. Why?
Violet Gibson was the archetypal outsider. She does her thing and gets locked up and then wrongly branded as a mad woman. This collection is about the quiet outsider. The one sitting in front of you there everyday, or staring down at you from a tree or an ESB wire.
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You only started writing fiction when you turned 40. What drove you to start writing then?
It seemed like the right age to start.
You spent many years working as a sound engineer and DJing. Do you feel like that work has influenced your writing?
Having a variety of careers under the belt means texture comes easily when giving characters professions and interests. But it's more an obsessive love for music that has influenced life and work choices, and it's generally not far away from what I write.
You lived in Madrid for close to a decade and recently returned to Ireland. What prompted you?
The timing felt right.
Many of the stories focus on outsiders, and challenge our views of these people. What drew you to that theme?
People who veer away from the norm have always had a magnetic effect on me. It's where the energy is highest.
How did studying anthropology change the way you see the world?
You're never quite right after studying anthropology. The curtain gets pulled back to show why the mundane things tend to mean so much in life, and then pulled back a little more to show how this same meaning is simply fabricated, and changes from culture to culture.
You're working on a novel, 'a different animal to the short story'. How so?
Well, as you said, I'm 'working on a novel'; I haven't actually put one on to the shelves yet. So it's outside my jurisdiction for now.
Writing is a daily habit, one you've described as 'getting the dirty diesel out of the engine'. Tell me more
I was describing there what writing felt like at the beginning, and how it took a while before something decent started coming.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
I've definitely climbed Mangerton mountain in Kerry a couple of times with John Moriarty in mind.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
'Read as much about Hollywood formalism as you can bear, so you know what not to do.' M John Harrison.
Who do you admire the most?
Artistically – Aphex Twin and Tommie Potts. Both seminal in how they go/went about their music business.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
A blanket ban on war and genocide.
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
The Lonely Voice by Frank O'Connor (2025 reissue); Bait (Mark Jenkin); Bookworm (KCRW).
Which public event affected you most?
The
Connacht final
, 2019.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
Dharamshala, India. A town built on defiance.
Your most treasured possession?
My faculties.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
I Could Read the Sky by Timothy O'Grady & Steve Pyke.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
JA Baker and John Moriarty. Jacket spuds over a camp fire.
The best and worst things about where you live?
I've just moved back to the Roscommon countryside after nine years in a metropolis. I honestly have no complaints.
What is your favourite quotation?
'Control your tongue and your stomach.' The Desert Fathers
Who is your favourite fictional character?
Constantine Naylor – the amnesiac art restorer in William Trevor's Giotto's Angels.
A book to make me laugh?
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien.
A book that might move me to tears?
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky.
To Avenge a Dead Glacier is published by Lilliput Press